I just received a credit from AT&T for our wireless bill.

I am in shock.  I am awed.

Mysteriously, our AT&T bill went up $5.  Yeah, I know, five bucks, whoop-dee-doo.  But it adds up.  So, I compared an earlier bill to this month’s and found two sneaky, little line-item increases:

May-June

July-August

I called AT&T…

Me:  ”Yeah, okay, so AT&T, what’s the deal with these Other Charges?”

AT&T:  ”Um, you have added a $4.99 iPhone text messaging plan?”

Me: “Nope, always had a $4.99 text messaging plan.  Check the Other Charges.”

AT&T:  ”Oh, I know!  You had insurance for your cell phone!”

Me: “Nope, haven’t had cell phone insurance for years.  And, you don’t offer insurance for the iPhone.  Check the Other Charges.”

AT&T:  Hmm.  Let me put you on hold and check the Other Charges.”

Me:  ”Sigh.”

So, I was told these Other Charges/Taxes/Fees  can increase without warning.  I complained that we should at least receive a notification.  The customer service rep commiserated and gave me a $10 credit.

Other Charges:  Suck.

Commiseration and $10 credit:  Very Cool.

Yup, there’s always something new to learn.  That goes double for computing.

Current Internet browsers have tabbed browsing–multiple web pages in multiple tabs, all in one tidy  browser window.  Click a tab to view.  Ctrl-click to open a link in a new tab.

But… if you have a mouse with a clickable scroll-wheel, aka  Mouse Button 3, (or an old mouse with three buttons sans scroll wheel), just click that–keyboard not needed.

I discovered this on the Google Chrome Blog.  I’ve been testing out Chrome as an alternative browser–have to say, very fast.  Of course, the rest of the popular browsers–IE, Firefox, Safari–do this, I just didn’t know!!!   (Man, it hurts to admit that.)

Nirvana for wireless network providers has to be when subscribers start using their network for all their communication needs.

I have many friends who exist, sans a land line, with only a cell phone.  And I think that’s just fine until you have to troubleshoot a problem with said cell phone–particulary a smartphone.

Let’s use AT&T Wireless for an example (currently, my favorite whipping company)…

They MUST do snoopy dances every time a subscriber picks them over a landline.  It probably goes something like this…

AT&T Wireless:  CUT THE CORD!  CUT THE CORD! CUT THE CORD!

New Subscriber:  ”Hi. I want to sign-up with you, AT&T Wireless, for all my communication needs.

ATT:  Snoopy Dance! Snoopy Dance! Snoopy Dance!

NS:  I want to get the new iPhone 3GS, too!

ATT:   Snoopy Dance! Snoopy Dance! Snoopy Dance!

NS:  Great! Now, instead of a land line and telephone,  I have a new iPhone 3GS and AT&T Wireless for all my communication needs.  Thank you Apple! Thank you AT&T!

ATT (and Apple):  Snoopy Dance! Snoopy Dance! Snoopy Dance!

Later…

NS:  Hi, I’m having a problem with my new iPhone 3GS.  Visual Voicemail is not working and I have a lot of dropped calls.

ATT:  No problem, we’ll help you out.  Can you call us from another line?

NS:  (silence… then)  Um, I don’t have another line.  I use AT&T for all my communication needs.

ATT:  (silent laughter)  I’m sorry, sir/maam, but we can’t help until you call us back from another line.

NS:  But I only have my new iPhone 3GS and AT&T for all my communication needs. I don’t have anything else.  You told me I wouldn’t need anything else.

ATT:  Can you call from a family member’s phone, or a friend’s?

NS:  I don’t have any friends, and all my famly is dead.

ATT:  Neighbor?

NS:  None.

ATT:  I’m sorry, but we can’t help until you call us back from another line.

NS:  Um.

ATT:  Is there anything else we can help you with, today?  Have I addressed all your questions?

NS:  Um.

ATT:  Have a nice day.

If there ever was an example of the colorful acronym, SNAFU (Situation Normal: All F—-D Up), Technology would be the poster child–at least when it gets into my hands.

My wife is frequently telling me that for a guy who makes part of his living as a personal technology consultant, I sure have a lot of problems (we’re only talking tech problems here, you know). I personally think it’s bad karma–I might have been a cylon in another life.

My latest SNAFU, of course, is with my new iPhone 3GS. Twice in the last week I’ve gotten a sync error when syncing the 3GS with iTunes. The error, as shown in the above image (the image was pulled off the net, btw) is…

“The iPhone “My Name’s iPhone” cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (13019).”

Restarting Vista fixed the problem both times. Now, however, the error will not go away.

Googling the error will get you a variety of recommended troubleshooting tips. Apple has a knowledge base article for just such an error…

Do I have the latest version of iTunes? Check
Did I try syncing with antivirus disabled? Check
Did I restart iTunes? Check.
Did I disable Genius? Never had it enabled.

I even reset my sync settings, then closed my eyes, ran around my room naked three times chanting there’s no place like Cupertino. Still nothing.

I finally caved and called Apple support.

One thing I have to say about Apple tech support… after I explained all my previous troubleshooting actions, they seemed to have believed me and did not ask me to repeat them like many of the other tech support script drones out there. Instead they suggested some other things to try.

They asked me to disable syncing music. I did, then synced again, and… It worked.

An FYI side note:
On my previous Palm and WinMo devices, if I disabled syncing a particular item such as contacts or photos, syncing stopped with no changes to the data on either device or computer. With iTunes and the iPhone, very different. If you choose to not sync your contacts, calendar, notes and/or photos, nothing is changed on either computer or device. If you disable sync of music, video and/or apps, all are removed from the iPhone. Must be some DRM thing.

So anyway… disabling music sync seemed to have worked. Since it didn’t make sense for the Apple expert to sit on the phone while I re-synced all 10 GB of music, I asked if there was anything else I could try if this didn’t work. She asked if I had any voice memos. I said only one. She mentioned that she had had a previous call about the same error which ended up having to do with syncing a voice memo–something else to look at.

She also mentioned that I could create a new admin user account under Vista and try syncing from there–yeah, that wouldn’t be happening.

Well, after she hung-up, I re-enabled music sync and tried again. It looked to be working. I watched it sync the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Radiohead before popping the same error–of course. What to do next?

Thinking about the voice memo thing, I remembered before the sync error appeared, I had renamed the one voice memo I had recorded to something I would remember, instead of the default time/date name.

I unchecked the voice memo in iTunes and tried syncing once more. And it worked. Heh. Found a nice little bug, right?

See… I don’t break this junk. I simply want it to do what it’s supposed to do. If I drop a few bills on a gadget that does XYZ, in order to make sure I’m getting my money’s worth, I expect it to do XYZ. If it doesn’t work, not my fault, man.

If only the wife understood. Sigh.

Update:
I forgot to mention… This sync problem? No different than any I’ve experienced with Palm and WinMo… All to be expected.

See you next time.

Yes, I admit it. I have a terrible affliction. Some call it genetic, others, a blight upon the soul. Whatever it is, I will acknowledge and take responsibility for it. It is called… dun-dun dunnh!… Camera Envy (notice the caps).

My wife and I went to a wedding in Rhinebeck, NY a couple of weeks back–had a great time, met some great people.  One thing I noticed was how many digital SLR cameras where being focused about. Immediately, like Pavlov’s dog, I felt my saliva glands kick-in–my wife had to constantly remind me to use a napkin. I will also unashamedly admit to running across a field of grass just to simply hold a beautiful Nikon D90 with VR lens and snap a few frames–glorious!

In the early days of prosumer dSLRs, I bought the 4 MP Olympus E10. This was back in the early ’00s. I had a lot of fun with that camera, taking some cool pictures in and around NYC. But battery life, the slow response and the fact that a friend’s point-and-shoot seemed to handle light and color much better than the E10, kind of killed it for me.

But I still wanted me some dSLR. Granted, one with way better battery life, burst mode, hi-quality pics and SD card capability. Oh and let’s not forget interchangeable lenses, live view, auto sensor cleaning, etc, etc. I have a 7 MP point-and-click that I take on vacation which works, but it’s photos are not as clear as my E10, let alone a modern dSLR.

Perhaps some day soon, maybe on my birthday or Ground Hogs Day, I’ll see a little bit of dSLR love (are you reading this, hon?). But until that happens…

Yes, I have Camera Envy, and I’m proud of it!

Cases & Virtual Keyboarding

Spent an hour in a very crowded NYC Apple store looking to nab a case for my WinMo AT&T Tilt replacement, the new 32 GB iPhone 3GS.

What I found was a whole lotta not much–some were cool, but many crappy.  And I mean “what were they thinking!” kind of crappy, too.

After some mildly obsessive research this past weekend, I had already narrowed the selection down to two possible candidates, neither of which are currently available–one ships in July. The other, “back-ordered”.

Still, the thought of dropping my 3GS, along with the ensuing public humiliation of me crying like a little girl…?  I needed a stopgap case.

After striking out at Best Buy and an AT&T store, earlier (ugly and uglier — pricey and pricier), I dropped by the Apple store. I really should have known better–you’ll see why later.

The Apple store probably had about 10-20 different brands and styles of iPhone protection–anything from silicone or polycarbonate skins to leather cases and holsters, all with varying levels of aesthetics.

Not sure where to start, I had an idea: look for 3GS case reviews online with my 3GS.  Worked kind of well, too.

The Opportunity

Here was an opportunity for an impromptu, in the field, real-world, in-depth, research experience I would have normally reserved for my laptop. Trying something similar on my Tilt in the past had simply been a frustrated, teeth-gnashing experience.

Here’s the step-by-step…

1. Squeezed between oodles of Apple gawkers for a coveted empty spot against the wall, directly next to the case rack.
2. Whipped out my 3GS.
3. Launched Safari.
4. Was asked by 3GS if I would like to select a wireless network.
5. Selected Apple’s free, unsecured, public hotspot.
6. Was asked to move by Apple cleaning staff.
7. Moved.
8. Went to the great ilounge dot com site for it’s huge list of iPod/iPhone related reviews (another good site, theiphoneblog dot com).
9. Was jostled by the mass of Apple patrons.
10. Searched for reviews on Apple’s current selection of cases.
11. Continued to be jostled by said Apple patrons.
12. Started reading searched-for reviews.
13. Was asked case-related questions by Apple patrons.
14. Spent about an hour researching iPhone cases for myself and Apple patrons using my 3GS with it’s virtual keyboard on apple’s free WiFi.
15. Narrowed down case choice to the $35 (for a piece of plastic? yikes!) Griffin Clarifi.
16. Said goodbye to, and was thanked by, my Apple patron friends.
17. Got in the very long checkout line.
18. While waiting in line, used Amazon’s iPhone app to check the price of the Clarifi.
19. Gaped at the Clarifi’s $21.95 price on Amazon.
20. Walked out of the apple store.

Now, what did I learn from this experience?  Quite a bit, actually…

Web Surfing Experience

Web surfing on my 3G Tilt was like opening a box of Cracker Jacks and discovering  there’s no prize at the bottom–vaguely dissapointing.

On the 3GS, what can I say… it was very cool. The larger, multi-touch screen, along with mobile Safari, made the difference.

Web surfing performance? On AT&T? Sucks about the same.

On WiFi? The 3GS feels faster.

Virtual Keyboard

First, I’ve been a touch-typist since college–reaching up to 70 wpm in my sober moments.  The thumb-typing (thumbing?) popularized by the Blackberry has always seemed excruciatingly slow and tedious to me.

Typing on the 3GS virtual keyboard, however, was enlightening. After a minor learning curve, along with a couple questions answered by some passing Apple “geniuses”, my overall previous experience with the now supplanted Tilt–and it’s slider, tactile keyboard– was kind of obliterated into total and complete insignificance.

I found thumbing on the 3GS keyboard (in landscape mode) to be warp-speed-scotty faster and far more accurate than on the Tilt, or my wife’s Blackberry-like Samsung Blackjack II, for that matter. Correcting mistakes was also easier due to some typing tricks of the new iPhone 3.0 OS.

Adding to that, I wrote more than 500 words of this post on the 3GS while commuting home on the subway. I have tried this with the Tilt in the past, but the jerks, starts and overall clickity-clackityness of some of the older NYC subway cars made thumbing on the Tilt while maintaining my sanity all but impossible.

Finally, once off the train and above ground, I copied and pasted the 500 words from the iPhone’s Note app to my blog via the iPhone Wordpress app I had previously downloaded from the App store. Copy and Paste, another new iPhone 3.0 feature (still find it kind of hard to believe this wasn’t in 1.0 and 2.0).

Other things I learned, or was reminded of…

First, Apple’s prices for 3rd-party accessories are freakin’ ridiculous.  Come on, $35 for something you can find on Amazon for $14 less? I told you, I should have known better.

Second, just because a 3rd-party accessory is sold by Apple, does not mean it’s the best product of its class. Or 2nd best. Or even 3rd. Honestly, looking at the iLounge case reviews (obviously subjective to iLounge reviewers), only 2 out of the bunch received an A. The rest were C+’s and below. Pathetic.

And last, I’ve met more sincerely nice people (patrons and geniuses) in an Apple store than in any other American store I’ve shopped–other than, maybe, Trader Joes.

So that’s pretty much it for this post. Stay tuned for more.

Before we move on, I’d like you to meet my new friend, Toki Tori. More on him after the bump.

Connectivity – Voice

First and foremost, I need a phone to make and receive calls, or check messages.  As a phone, the iPhone is OK.  Not great. Just OK.

I spend most of the work day walking from appointment to appointment on the very noisy streets of Manhattan–noisy enough to overwhelm both the speaker and microphone of my new toy.  I now use the included iPhone Stereo Headset. The earpiece volume is great, but I have to sometimes cup the microphone closer to my mouth to be heard.

I do love how the music will pause when a call comes in, then resume when the call is complete. I also love the built-in wired remote, which controls volume, pause/play for music and phone functions.

I still get just as many dropped calls with the iPhone as on the Tilt. As both are AT&T 3G, I’m sure we know the culprit.

Connectivity – Data

No Push email. No IMAP IDLE. What to do? Worried about battery life, I didn’t want to setup a timed fetch (send/receive) of my email. So I just try to remember to check messages manually.

I am still receiving the occasional data network errors. Don’t know if it’s the iPhone or just AT&T’s saturated 3G network in the NYC area, but this is a huge problem when urgent business is pending.

Also, email updates can be excruciating slow on 3G.  Again, AT&T?

WiFi

This has been a bit interesting. Other than a couple of glitches (had to reset the iPhone’s network settings in order to see any wireless networks) WiFi has been pretty solid.The new 3.0 OS is supposed to simply accessing public hot-spots–automatically and seamlessly in some cases. I haven’t yet figured out how to tell when data is being pulled over 3G or WiFi. That will help determine how “seamless” things really are.

Props to AT&T (for once) for allowing iPhone users to have free access to their 20,000 WiFi hot-spots, including Starbucks. Luckily for me, there is a Starbucks on almost every corner of Manhattan.

Performance

Again, I don’t have a previous gen iPhone for comparison.  Overall, the 3GS seems peppy. I’ve run into some app slowdowns, but these could be related to the network.There have been occasional delays with the play/pause function with the wired remote.

One big surprising slow-down, however, had to do with a game called Toki Tori lite, a puzzle video game. The iPhone has been touted as the next big thing in portable video gaming. Well…

Again, not sure if this is a glitch with the iPhone or the app, but after playing for a few minutes, the game became so sluggish and unresponsive as to be unplayable. This was the free “lite” version of the app. Glad I didn’t pay for the full version. Too bad, though–I like the game.

Continuing my experience with switching from the Windows Mobile AT&T Tilt to the iPhone 3GS.

Looks & UI

I have to say that while I was pretty impressed with my new, sleek, shiny little toy, the user interface kind of blew me away. “Dead Simple” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Not having to pull out and use a stylus while pressing a bunch of buttons to navigate as in WinMo? Priceless.

Activation

Activation kind of sucked. iTunes is the conduit for all things iPhone including sync and activation. The activation process seemed to go fairly smooth but I had no connection to the AT&T network. For S&G’s I swapped SIM cards with my Tilt and was able to make voice calls, but had no data connection. Finally called AT&T, who switched me to Apple. Apple could not get it to work, switched me back to AT&T. AT&T told me I shouldn’t have used the Tilt SIM card. After a bit of a wait, the new SIM card was properly activated–everything working. This was over the course of two days.  As I said–kind of sucked.

SYNC

iTunes is no speed demon, but then neither was ActiveSync for WinMo. iTunes syncs my Outlook contacts & calendar, photos, videos, music and more. Unfortunately, iTunes does not support 3rd-party sync. Most iPhone app developers rely on a local WiFi connection to sync data–luckily I have a wireless network.

Weird Stuff

Internet:  not sure if this is AT&T or the iPhone, but several times a day I receive “cellular data network” errors when trying to access the Internet

Bluetooth: WinMo was no champ in this category, but with the iPhone, bluetooth connection problems with my Plantronics Calisto Pro headset is constant. I have to periodically do some arcane, mystic, mumbo-jumbo of disabling/enabling bluetooth along power cycling both devices to reconnect the two.

Battery life: never having had an iPhone before, I really have no comparison, but I had a few moments of seeing the battery drop 10% in a few minutes. The iPhone blogs have also been reporting this from many users. It seems to be related more to the 3.0 OS update than the hardware. We’ll see how this pans out.

I’ve been playing wait-and-see since the 1st gen model came out in ‘07, wanting to give it a chance to flop or mature before I dipped my toes into the Apple mobile pond. I’ve always been a fan of Apple, but I was honestly a bit pessimistic about the 1st gen due to some missing items: 3G, multi-tasking, 3rd-party apps, physical keyboard, tethering and push email to name a few.

At the time I was using a 3G Windows Mobile smartphone with all of the above, and since I use my WinMo phone as an ebook reader, the lack of 3rd-party apps was a deal breaker. I also did not want to subscribe to Apple’s MobileMe service to get push email as I already pay the costs of using my personal email domain with fastmail.net. Fastmail supports IMAP IDLE which is the next best thing to Push and which the iPhone mail client does not support.

Then the 2nd gen iPhone 3G was released. Features include 3G and 3rd-party apps via the iTunes App Store.  I still wanted to wait as I just purchased the new WinMo ATT Tilt and was still unsure about the lack of Push or IMAP IDLE and physical keyboard.

As an aside… I tried the WinMo Blackberry client so I could have Push on my Tilt.  This was with AT&T.  The client, as with many Internet functions on WinMo, was prone to crash. Also, the cost was ridiculous. The cost of an AT&T data plan for a WinMo PDA smartphone or Blackberry is $30. If you want to use the Blackberry client on WinMo? $45. Crazy.

Now we’re up to the 3GS which is supposedly faster, has better battery life and, thanks to the 3.0 OS update available for all generations (and the Touch) it has a landscape keyboard mode and 3rd-party push notification ability.

As I’ve been getting frustrated with the constant crashes of my WinMo Tilt and its horrible web browsing experience, I finally took the leash off my “must-buy-new-toy” monster and pre-ordered the 3GS from AT&T. I received my iPhone the day it was released–no lines for me!

I will post my completely subjective experiences and impressions over the next couple of weeks as things pop-up.

For years I’ve been working up my nerve to ask litterbugs to pick-up their litter and be responsible. However, it was hard to maintain the veneer of civilized folk and politely ask them to pick-up their mess, when all I wanted was to kick them in the ass.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve managed to calm down a bit and contrive a less confrontational means of accosting the litterbug.

Cajoling
In Union Square park, I saw a man crumble-up the Subway sandwich wrapper his sub came in and throw it on the ground. As he was getting up to leave, I approached him and politely said…

Me: “Hey, you dropped something.”
Man: “No I didn’t.”
Me: “Come on, sure you did, it’s right there on the ground. The Subway wrapper?”
Man: “That’s not mine.”
Me: “Really? Here, I’ll get if for you.”

Without batting an eye, the guy walked away. I sighed, picked-up the wrapper and tossed it in the trash bin–not 5 feet away. Strike one.

Concerned Preemptive Strike
Walking down 42nd Street near Times Square, a woman walking past me fished-out the last cigarette from an American Spirits box and casually released the empty pack to the street. I grabbed the empty pack, chased her down and…

Me: “Maam, I’m glad I caught you! You dropped this.
Lady: “That’s not mine.
Me: “Oh? I’m sorry. I saw you drop it and wanted to get it back to you.
Lady: “That’s not fucking mine, okay??

Lady walks off. I drop the pack in a corner bin. Strike 2.

Calm Quiet Helpfulness
I had to go to the Post Office, today. As I was filling out a Certified Mail form, I glanced at a guy standing next to me–and a trash bin. He was pulling scraps of paper out of his pocket, tearing them into little pieces and dropping them to the floor. I looked down at his feet (his right foot almost touching the trash bin), and saw a growing pile of confetti. I put on a gentle smile and…

Me: “You know, there’s a trash bin right next to you?
Man: Smiles. Says nothing.
Me: “It would be better if you put it in the trash bin instead of on the floor.” I point at the trash bin in case he didn’t see it.
Man: Smiles. Looks at the trash bin. Says nothing.

The man had stopped shredding paper during our “conversation.” I gave him one more look, then went back to filling out my form.  Out of the corner of my eye I see him search his pockets, bring out another handful of paper and start shredding. While some of the scraps hit the confetti pile on the floor, he throws a brief glance in my direction, then dumps the rest of the paper he’s holding into the bin. Well, at least this time I didn’t strike out.

Now, regardless of my intent for a “civilized” means of pointing-out a litterbug’s littery little habits, I know I was just being passive aggressive. But I’m trying. I want the courage, and the grace, to take more responsibility for the things going on around me. In a small way, I’ve started with the Litterbug.

But please don’t get me started about people who drop their gum. Spankies!!!